Sustainable Development Goals, Human Rights, and the Environment

The United Nations recently adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets.  In an article for the Washington International Law Journal, I analyze the SDGs and targets in light of international human rights obligations relating to the environment.  I conclude that the proposed SDGs would promote those obligations, but that the specific targets are often written in language that is neither concrete nor closely linked to existing human rights obligations.   (The article analyzes the 2014 draft, but no relevant changes were made from that draft in the final form of the SDGs.)